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THE HISTORIC 
ROLE ^/FRANCE 

AMONG THE NATIONS 



CHARLES VICTOR LANGLOIS 



THE HISTORIC ROLE <?/ FRANCE 

AMONG THE NATIONS 



The 

Historic Role of France 

Among the Nations 



An Address 

Delivered at the Uni-versity of Chicago 
October i8, igO/f 



By Charles Victor Langlois 

Professor of the Sciences Auxiliary to History 
Faculty of Letters, University of Paris 



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CHICAGO 

The University of Chicago Press 
1905 



Gift 
The University 



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THE HISTORIC ROLE ^/FRANCE 

AMONG THE NATIONS^ 

It seems to me very probable that those who 
invited a historian and a professor of history to 
address you today expected him to make history 
his theme. Not, perhaps, that I should choose 
a topic from my own special field of study, 
which is too technical, but rather one of those 
large subjects which historians, whatever the 
nature of their investigations, are not at liberty 
to ignore — such subjects being the final end and 
justification of all historical investigation. 

The philosophy of French history is surely 
a subject of this kind, for the ultimate object of 
all labor on the history of a nation is to deter- 
mine that nation's present position and the di- 
rection in which it is moving. Your presence 
here proves your interest in all that concerns 
France; it cannot, therefore, be a matter of 
indifference to you to learn how this serious 
problem of detecting the real trend of French 
history appears to modern Frenchmen who 

^Translation by Associate Professor T. Atkinson 
Jenkins, of the Department of Romance Languages and 
Literatures. Reprinted from the University Record, Vol. 
IX, No. 10. 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

think about these things. Of course, such a 
subject is too vast to be taken in at a glance; 
moreover, to treat it before foreigners is, for a 
Frenchman, a task of extreme deHcacy. Con- 
scious, however, of bringing to the task of 
outHning the philosophy of French history, if 
not the requisite abilities, at least an absolute 
sincerity, I shall make the attempt. 

First of all, do not be alarmed: I shall not 
go back to the deluge. The territory now called 
France has been peopled by many races since 
the epoch when, the distribution of climate 
being difiPerent from that now prevailing, men 
hunted there the elephant and the mastodon. 
Modern anthropologists exhume the bones of 
these prehistoric men, and upon them build 
speculations which have, to be sure, some value, 
but not for our present purpose. The first of 
these primitive^ peoples to hand down its name 
to us — the Celtic people, or perhaps I should 
say the Celtic aristocracy, the Gauls — flour- 
ished two thousand years ago. Gaul was con- 
quered by Rome and profoundly Romanized ; 
it became one of the main centers of Roman 
civilization and shared in the general destiny 
of the Roman world ; for Roman civilization 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

was modified in Gaul, as elsewhere, during the 
early centuries of our era by the success of the 
Jud^o-Christian movement and by the advent 
of the barbarians. These invaders, mostly of 
Germanic race, took up their abode in Gaul as 
in other parts of Romania. Then follows in 
Gaul, as elsewhere, among the ruins of the 
Roman structure, a long period of turmoil and 
readjustment, out of which emerges the feudal 
system — that is, a system in which, under a 
royal authority more or less nominal, the vari- 
ous seigniories lie side by side or interpenetrate, 
while under each feudal chief are groups of 
retainers and subjects. From our present point 
of view, this is all that we need to know of the 
history of the regions which are now called 
France. 

Not but that frequent attempts have been 
made to seek the beginning of a French national 
tradition in these remote times. Some modern 
historians, examining what the Roman writers 
say of the Gauls conquered by Caesar, have 
thought they succeeded in detecting in them 
some of the traits which belong to Frenchmen 
of our own day. According to these historians, 
the Romans observed in our ancestors that 
nervous mobility, the spirit of quick sympathy 

7 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

and of sociability, vivacity, impetuousness, gen- 
erosity, the liking for eloquence and partiality 
for the "point of honor," as well as the vanity 
and general frivolousness which are still com- 
monly ascribed to the French character. I find, 
for example, in recent books by reputable au- 
thors, statements like these: "As for sensitive- 
ness to impressions, we are still the excitable 
nation spoken of by Strabo ; " and : " The exer- 
cise of the will among the French people has 
always been explosive, centrifugal, and direct, 
as it was among the Gauls" (Fouillee). These 
analogies run into even greater detail, and from 
the descriptions which Valerius Maximus and 
Diodorus give of the funeral ceremonies of the 
Gauls, and from the fact that modern Parisians 
remove their hats on the passing of a funeral 
procession and visit the cemeteries on November 
2, the conclusion has been drawn that " the cult 
for the dead, intenser perhaps and certainly 
more lasting among the Gauls than in the cities 
of the classic world, was destined to remain one 
of the strongest feelings of our nation. We 
would fain be sociable and affectionate even be- 
yond the tomb." These writers are of a school 
with those who cannot describe the struggle of 
Vercingetorix against Rome without feeling a 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

sort of retrospective patriotism, and for whom 
Rome is still the enemy. Henri Martin, an his- 
torian much read during the period from 1850 
to 1870, represents this state of mind, peculiar 
as it seems to us today. 

Still other writers have attempted to settle 
the respective contributions of Rome, of the 
Gallo-Romans, and of the Prankish invaders to 
the formation of the French people. Thus, the 
Germanists maintain that the rule of the bar- 
barians regenerated the decrepit world, and that 
the invaders brought with them certain virtues, 
and certain original institutions which were the 
outgrowth of these virtues. The Romanists, of 
whom M. Fustel de Coulanges is the most 
prominent, assert that the Germans, being few 
m numbers, were at once swallowed up in the 
surrounding populations, and that things went 
on nearly the same as before. If we believe 
certain historians, the feudal system in France 
was a product of the Germanic spirit of liberty 
and companionship in arms, which acted like a 
leaven upon a society already fallen into decline. 
According to others, the feudal system, a phe- 
nomenon not peculiar to mediaeval France nor 
even to mediaeval Europe, is the product of 
causes analogous to those which have called it 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 



into existence in very different environments, 
for example in Japan. 

A feudal system arose in Prankish Gaul, as 
elsewhere, at the time when the central authori- 
ty, in this case of Roman origin, became power- 
less to maintain order and safety of person and 
property. Other guarantees were necessary, 
and they were found, instinctively, in the rela- 
tion of lord and vassal existing in outline al- 
ready in the Roman clientele as well as in the 
" companionship " of the barbarians. 

Probably the commonest conclusion drawn 
from these conflicting views is that it is a mat- 
ter of extreme difficulty to sift out, when deal- 
ing with these remote times, what is peculiar to 
the genius of the particular race, and what are 
merely processus common to all societies placed 
under the same conditions. After all, what is 
the "genius" of a race? An abstraction, per- 
haps — merely a word with which we allow 
ourselves to be satisfied, but which may corre- 
spond to nothing real and definite. In any case, 
the Celtic genius of the Gauls, the Germanic 
genius of the Franks — without reckoning in 
the nameless genius of fhose ancient elephant- 
hunters who have left us nothing but their 
bones — all these geniuses are now, and have 

10 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

long since been, so completely fused in the 
French character that to try to separate them 
would indeed be a desperate undertaking. As 
well pretend to discern in a river the waters of 
its tributaries. Let us therefore refrain entirely 
from discussions of this kind. 

The only primitive element whose influence 
has certainly been continuous in our history is, 
not the tie of blood, but the tradition of Rome. 
First of all, the Roman tongue. The population 
of ancient Roman Gaul spoke Romance; the 
number of Celtic words in the Romance dialects 
of this region is quite insignificant, and the 
number of Germanic words not large. Dis- 
tricts like those parts of Britany where Breton 
is spoken, or of Flanders where Flemish is the 
vernacular, are frontier zones colonized by 
Celts or Germans at comparatively recent dates. 
First of all, then, the mother-tongue; second, 
for the cultivated classes, the idea, the memory, 
and the regretful admiration of a stable govern- 
ment, of political unity, of peace and a superior 
civilization — in a word, an ideal. This ideal, 
preserved by the church, which was admirably 
constituted for the purpose, more than once 
powerfully influenced the course of events in 

F'rance. 

II 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

The Roman ideal, fresh and recent in men's 
minds, was influential, for example, at the time 
of the restoration of the Western Empire in 
the year 800. Charlemagne, king of the Franks 
(both of Gaul and Germany), believed he was 
reviving the Roman Empire with the co-opera- 
tion of the pope; but this artificial restoration 
crumbled away in the ninth century. In that 
century the sons of Charlemagne's son divided 
up the new empire. Henceforward there was a 
king of the western Franks (Gaul), and a king 
of the eastern Franks (Germany). Between 
lay a long strip of territory bounded by the 
Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhone on the one 
side, and by the Rhine and the Alps on the 
other — the inheritance of Lothaire. These were 
the earliest outlines of France and Germany, 
and here lay their future field of conflict. 

The Roman ideal was actively influential a 
second time, at the. end of the tenth century, 
in the western Frankish kingdom now called 
France. The king, the heir in this region of 
the Carolingian emperors and consequently of 
the imperial tradition, was at first only a shad- 
ow ; for the inner processes of feudal disin- 
tegration and reorganization which had been 
working gradually for centuries ceased with 
' 12 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 



the period of Carolingian decadence. The 
Prankish king was at first weak indeed, being 
very poor. But in 987 it came to pass that the 
royal dignity fell to one of the most powerful 
feudal chiefs of the whole region, the ancestor 
of the Capetian line. From this time on, the 
tradition of authority as Rome understood it, 
which in theory had never once lapsed, became 
once again, in hands able to enforce respect for 
it, a living force. Instinctively the Capetian kings 
made attempts to exercise the ancient inalien- 
able rights of their throne. They labored hard, 
without definite plan and foresight, and with- 
out at first realizing clearly the nature of the 
work which they were to accomplish, to under- 
mine in their kingdom the foundations of the 
feudal system, a system turbulent and restless, 
and to substitute a stable government — in a 
word, the unity and peace of Rome. The evolu- 
tion thus begun in the eleventh century in 
France, . under the leadership of the Capetians, 
is therefore exactly parallel — though moving in 
the opposite direction — to the evolution dating 
from the barbarian invasions; for it tends to 
reconstitute, within the limited boundaries of a 
detached section of Romania, a state more or 
less after the ancient conception of the state; 

13 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

that is, an organized political being or entity, 
centralized after the manner of living beings. 

For hundreds of years after the eleventh cen- 
tury the struggle of royalty against the feudal 
powers of the French territory, and for the unifi- 
cation of the whole region, forms the basis of 
French history. This struggle might have end- 
ed in defeat. Not all the early Capetians were 
princes of great merit — far from it; but, as 
luck would have it, they succeeded one another 
from father to son without disastrous interreg- 
nums and without quarrels over divisions of the 
inheritance. They made incredible mistakes; 
such, for example, as allowing the king of Eng- 
land who already owned, as heir of the ancient 
dukes of Normandy, several great continental 
fiefs, to acquire by marriage the whole south- 
west of France. But, again as luck would have 
it, at the most critical moment, at the beginning 
of the thirteenth century, the French monarch 
Philippe Auguste was a man of ability and 
energy, while his principal antagonist, John 
Lackland, king of England, was a most con- 
temptible fellow. After Philippe Auguste, who 
captured from John Normandy, Anjou, Maine, 
and Poitou, and witnessed the political ruin of 
south France brought about (to the profit of 

14 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

north France) by the crusade against the Albi- 
genses, the work was done : it was decided that 
there should be one France — not two, Langue- 
doil and Languedoc, nor more than two — and 
that the "France of the King" should little by 
little swallow up the whole of the French terri- 
tory. The work of Philippe Auguste was not, 
of course, done in a day; scores of years and 
streams of blood were needed to smother the 
independence asserted by Brittany and Flanders, 
and by what was left of other feudal powers, 
and especially to wrest the southwest from the 
English. But finally, through indescribable 
sufferings, France emerges. From the thirteenth 
century onward, and especially after the Hun- 
dred Years' War, France is indisputably a state, 
and the leading state in Europe. 

She is the first in date on the continent; for 
as yet there is no Germany. The kingdom of 
the eastern Franks, whose head vainly made use 
of the Carolingian title of emperor, remains in 
a state of anarchy. There is as yet no Italy; 
and the pope continues to carefully look after 
that matter. There is as yet no Spain. 

She is the first in power; for France's only 
rival, the England of that day, has the mortal 
enmity of the Scotch, of the Irish, and of the 

15 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 



Welsh, and is neither so large, nor so populous, 
nor so wealthy, nor so triumphantly active as 
France. England is confined in a part of a 
northern island, while the name, the language, 
the men and things of France have overflowed 
the known world. The expansion of France, 
one of the most striking phenomena of mediaeval 
history, began very early, much before Capetian 
policy had brought about a unified France. 
French Normans took England from the Anglo- 
Saxons, and southern Italy and Sicily from the 
Greeks and the Saracens. Several of the cru- 
sades were French expeditions, and a majority 
of the Christian principalities of the East — the 
kingdom of Jerusalem, the Latin empire of 
Constantinople, the dukedom of Athens, etc. — 
were founded and governed by French knights. 
Nor is this all. For reasons which it is, of 
course, extremely difficult to specify, there oc- 
curred, in this formative period from the elev- 
enth century onward, a remarkable outburst of 
artistic effort in all directions. Of all the 
vernacular literatures of the Middle Ages the 
French is the most original, the most pleasing, 
and the only literature which exercised a uni- 
versal influence. In its day it was known and 
imitated everywhere within the confines of 

i6 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

Christianity. French was understood by culti- 
vated people, not only in England, where the 
Norman dialect was for a long time the official 
language, but also in imperial territories (the 
Netherlands, the Rhine countries, etc.), in Italy, 
and in the East. Foreigners took a hand in 
writing in French, or in Provengal, and suc- 
ceeded very well. It is well understood that 
certain French poems of the Middle Ages, whose 
originals are lost, are preserved only in transla- 
tions or adaptations in German, Anglo-Saxon, 
Dutch, Norwegian, Icelandic, Italian, and Greek. 
The " courtly " ideal of French aristocratic soci- 
ety of the twelfth century was adopted by the 
upper classes of all Europe. In the matter of 
the arts of architecture and decoration, the 
French styles — the " Cistercian," and especially 
the " Gothic," which is the most characteris- 
tically French of all styles and whose earliest 
attempts are to be seen in the immediate neigh- 
borhood of Paris — were not at all confined to 
France. Modern archaeologists have drawn up 
the long catalogue of mediaeval monuments built 
beyond the French borders by Frenchmen, or in 
imitation of French models ; they are found 
everywhere — in Castile, Bohemia, Hungary, 
and Palestine. Village churches in Cyprus 

17 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

have an astonishing resemblance to those of our 
own villages in the departments of the Oise and 
Seine-et-Oise. Moreover, numerous texts bear 
evidence that French fashions and manufactures 
in matters of costume and care of the person 
were received outside of France with no less 
favor than French art and literature. In a 
word, mediaeval civilization — or, at the very 
least, the refined evidences of civilization — had 
in all Christian countries a French coloring. 

One more consideration. During this period 
it was to the schools at Paris that the most 
gifted clerics of all nationalities came to finish 
their studies in literature and theology. From 
the tenth century on, Paris is the intellectual 
capital of Europe. A current saying was that 
the world was governed by three powers : the 
Papacy, the Empire, and Learning. The first 
resided at Rome, the second in Germany, and 
the third at Paris.- Another common saying, 
quoted by Chretien de Troyes in the prologue 
to his Cliges, and certainly repeated long before 
him, was to the effect that Learning (clergie) 
and Military Power (chevalerie), after dwelling 
for a time in Greece and next in Rome, were 
now settled in France, whence, it was to be 
hoped, they would never depart: 

i8 



THE H ISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

Puis vint Chevalerie a Rome 
Et de la Clergie la some, 
Qui or est en France venue. 
Dieu doint qu'ele i soit retenue 
Et que li leus li abelisse 
Tant que jamais de France n'isse 
L'enors qui s'i est arestee.- 

A list has been drawn up of well-known 
men of the thirteenth century, and later, who 
belonged to the University of Paris either as 
teachers or as students ; the greatest names in 
the history of the church and of mediaeval 
thought are found in this list. We may note, 
to be sure, that the greatest names are not 
French names: Albert, a German; St. Bona- 
venture and St. Thomas, Italians ; Roger Bacon 
and Duns Scotus, Englishmen, etc. But what 
of that? The fact remains that the reputation 
of France in science, some six or seven hundred 
years ago, was as great as its renown in art and 
literature and in material achievement. 



^Then Knighthood came to Rome, 
Along with the sum of Knowledge, 
Which now has come into France: 
God grant that she be kept here, 
And that the place so content her 
That never again shall leave France 
The honor which has settled there. 

19 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

Here, then, is the main fact. At a certain 
moment in mediaeval times, France, thanks to 
the advantages of her geographical position, to 
the abilities of her people, and to other circum- 
stances (chance no doubt must be credited with 
something) — France was historically far in 
advance of all other countries, and from all 
points of view. In modern times the benefits of 
this leadership have been gradually lost, and 
more or less completely so. Why? How? 
These two serious and difficult questions now 
call for an answer. 

If we ask ourselves, today, how the affairs 
of France ought to have been guided so as to 
secure permanently the advantages of leader- 
ship, the answer seems plain. There were re- 
quired, first, such an administrative organiza- 
tion of the country as would render her total 
military and financial strength constantly avail- 
able ; second, a systematic annexation of the 
northern and eastern provinces belonging to the 
ancient inheritance of Lothaire — provinces 
which, thanks to German anarchy, were still 
hesitating between France and Germany — as a 
preparation for the inevitable time when rival 
states should appear on the European continent ; 

* 20 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

and third, that France, when the discovery of 
new continents had wonderfully enlarged the 
horizons of human activity, ought to have fore- 
seen that the future belonged to those European 
peoples which should " swarm over seas," and 
that the forces of national expansion were to be 
guided accordingly. 

To reproach the French kings for not having 
conceived this political program, and especially 
its third article, would doubtless be absurd. More- 
over, it is certain that the first two articles, rela- 
tively easy of conception, were not so easy of 
execution as one at this distance might imagine. 
And yet, allowance being made for obstacles 
arising from unfavorable circumstances, we are 
justified in saying that France has suffered 
cruelly, since the beginning of modern times, 
from the incapacity of those who have governed 
the country. Nearly all of her rulers shame- 
fully neglected opportunities and made endless 
mistakes. Other states — Prussia, for example 
' — have plainly owed their greatness to the pru- 
dent and persevering policies of a succession of 
intelligent kings. France, for her part, was more 
often than not ruled by narrow-minded men 
of very ordinary ability. Two exceptions may 
be cited — Henry IV. and Cardinal RicheHeu; 
but that is all. 

21 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

The first article — that concerning interior 
policy — needs no extended comment. The old 
French monarchy, even under Louis XIV., 
never managed its finances well, nor, as a conse- 
quence, did it ever command armies at all com- 
parable, for instance, to those of Frederick II. 
of Prussia. Nor did France ever have a solid 
administrative framework; consequently the 
state benefitted by only a small percentage of 
the national strength. 

The opportunity to annex without much 
trouble the best parts of Lothaire's territories 
was lost by the end of the mediaeval period. 
The kings of the house of Valois were so little 
alive to their duties toward the country that 
they handed over to their younger sons whole 
provinces, thus setting up once more the ancient 
feudal arrangement which the early Capetians 
had labored so hard to destroy. One of these 
younger sons founded, in the fourteenth cen- 
tur)^, the great house of Burgundy, which, by a 
series of conquests and family unions, added to 
its French domains the imperial Netherlands 
and almost all the northern part of ancient 
Lotharingia — a great but fragile power, of 
too rapid growth. Louis XL shattered it, but 
he did not succeed in taking real possession of 

' 22 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

all the fragments. He was not in a position to 
prevent the daughter of Charles the Bold from 
carrying over by her marriage the imperial ter- 
ritories of Burgundy to the house of Austria. 
Truly, a disastrous marriage and one fraught 
with incalculable consequences ! To crown these 
misfortunes, the son of this marriage married 
the heiress of Spain ^ — Spain which, by the 
union of Castile and Aragon, had just been 
raised to the rank of a first-class power. 
Thenceforward, to conquer the Low Countries, 
France must enter into conflict with Germany 
and Spain in coalition. This was much to 
undertake ; in fact, too much. The immediate 
successors of Louis XL preferred to waste time 
in leading romantic expeditions into Italy, with 
the result that French blood was spilled for fifty 
years in that country, to no appreciable effect — 
for the mere pleasure of it. When this insanity 
was over, it was getting late, for the Reforma- 
tion had started the civil wars and aroused new 
forces in every direction. France at last, on the 
proper field, entered upon the fight with Spain 
and Spain's allies. She won very slowly, in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some of 
the Lotharingian provinces : Alsace, Franche- 
Comte, Lorraine; but none from the Nether- 

23 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

lands. The pride of Louis XIV., excited to a 
ridiculous height by his too easy victories over 
moribund Spain, availed nothing against the 
patriotic energy of the United Provinces of 
Holland, which had become free and Protestant. 
In a word, three and a half centuries after the 
end of the Middle Ages France is hardly any 
larger than she was under Charles VI I. , although 
not a decade has gone by without seeing fright- 
ful hecatombs of human lives ; and around about 
her, formidable states have grown up, limiting 
her and watching her. No, assuredly not — the 
second article of the program was not carried 
out as it ought to have been. 

What shall be said of the third ? Did France, 
who in mediaeval times had colonies in the 
East and in southern Italy, and whose mari- 
time populations were noted for their adven- 
turous spirit — Normans, Bretons, Basques, 
Provengals — did France secure her legitimate 
part of the new continents, repositories of virgin 
wealth and future cradles of the human race? 
There is not the least doubt that if the royal 
government had been capable of a settled policy 
in this matter, great things would have been pos- 
sible. France of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 
eighteenth centuries was full of people who 

24 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

would have been glad to set out, as they said 
then, " for the islands ; " " they took their hats 
and set out for the islands " — this was the cur- 
rent phrase. But in high places there was very 
little effort made to smooth their way. Never- 
theless there arose spontaneously, or nearly so, 
more than one New France beyond the seas — 
in the islands of the Indian ocean, in Hindustan, 
in the Antilles, in North America (the St. Law- 
rence Valley, the region of the Great Lakes, the 
Mississippi Valley). But France was unable 
to utilize, as England did, her civil and religious 
discords to propagate her race. The Hugue- 
nots, driven out of France, did not take ship on 
some " Mayflower " and found elsewhere a New 
France ; the royal government would not have 
permitted them to live, even in the far ends of 
the earth, under the iieurs-de-lis. They were 
scattered in England, Holland, Prussia, Switzer- 
land, and elsewhere, where they quickly gave 
up their nationality — a dead loss to the French 
nation. What could we expect? The royal 
government, absorbed in its European wars, its 
eyes fixed on the classic battlegrounds of 
Flanders and Italy, felt not the slightest interest 
in the French empire born beyond the seas, and 
made foolish use of it as small change for ob- 

25 



THE HIS TORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

taining concessions. The decisive episode in the 
history of the modern world belongs to the 
eighteenth century; it is the abdication of 
France, in favor of England, as a colonial power 
and as the mother-hive of nations. England 
then began in its turn an enormous advance, 
the effects of which in all probability will be 
prolonged indefinitely through the ages to come. 
In spite of this, France continued, up to the 
end of this period (to 1789), to keep the first 
rank among civilized states. We must not for- 
get that tmder Louis XIV. the population of 
France alone still represented 40 per cent, of the 
total of the great powers of Europe. The costly 
mistakes of Louis XV. in colonial matters were 
hardly noticed at the time, and only much later 
were their effects seen. Finally, in all that did 
not depend directly on the government, as in 
letters, art, and science, France had easily main- 
tained her supremacy. Of course, in even these 
fields she is no longer without rivals. Italy 
has had her day in the Renaissance ; the France 
of Henry IV. and of Louis XIV. has no one to 
counterbalance Shakspere on the one hand, or 
Velasquez and Rembrandt on the other; Eng- 
land and Germany, with Newton and Leibnitz, 
inaugurate gloriously their work in science and 

26 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

philosophy. But France remains the sensorium 
commune of thinking Europe, and still sets the 
fashion. Learned men of all countries have not 
ceased to use French as a medium of communi- 
cation, while Frenchmen continue in contented 
ignorance of any language but their own. In 
the eighteenth century the style Pompadour and 
the philosophy of the encyclopedists were in 
their day the style and the philosophy of the 
civilized world : of the king of Prussia and the 
German princes, of the empress of Russia and 
the Swedish aristocracy, of all-powerful states- 
men in Spain, Portugal, Tuscany, and else- 
where. Proofs need not be cited ; no one can 
dispute the fact that France was looked upon 
in the eighteenth century as a second fatherland, 
the intellectual home of all educated men. This 
was true of those who smiled at her weaknesses^ 
and even of those who disliked France or de- 
tested her. 

At this time (1789), one hundred and fifteen 
years ago, occurred an accident which pro- 
foundly disturbed the course of European 
history. All that seemed accomplished by the 
evolution of the preceding centuries was sud- 
denly called in question once more by the French 
Revolution. 

27 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

The French Revolution means France rid of 
the government which had always failed to 
utilize her maximum strength and so to profit 
by her historical advance as to secure for her 
an unassailable position of leadership. The 
Revolution means France mistress of her destiny 
for the first time, her strength multiplied 
tenfold by glowing and generous passions. 
Monarchical Europe, united against her, at- 
tempts to crush her under its weight, but with- 
out success. Then she takes the offensive 
against Europe, in the role of emancipator of 
peoples. Henceforward it is not a question of 
w^hether or not France shall get the Low Coun- 
tries and the Rhine as a frontier. All that the 
ancient monarchy had been scheming for in 
vain during three hundred years was gained at 
the first stroke, and more besides. But her 
momentum carried France farther. Would she, 
could she check herself? Had she stopped in 
time, the ill effects of ancient blunders might 
have been counteracted. Everything was still 
possible. This was one hundred and ten years 
ago; let us see what happened. 

It was in the nature of things that soon the 
old instinct for rule and conquest should be 
mingled, in the revolutionary consciousness, 

28 



THE HISTOR IC ROLE OF FRANCE 

with the thought of freeing other peoples. This 
spirit may, in fact, be observed as early as 1792. 
It was therefore infinitely probable that sooner 
or later the strength of France, magnified by the 
Revolution, should be appropriated and put to 
use by some general favored by fortune, to for- 
ward his own selfish enterprises. But this general 
might have been a moderate, prudent, and sen- 
sible man. If only he had been a born French- 
man! But the place was taken by Napoleon, 
by a ^captain, Italian by blood and education, a 
foreigner to our traditional views and opinions, 
a man haunted by colossal chimeras, and one 
whose head had been turned by his amazing suc- 
cess. He made use of France, and of all the 
nations that revolutionary France had already 
annexed or allied, as instruments wherewith to 
build an empire like that of Rome, and to em- 
body in his person Alexander and Caesar. And 
here, we may note by the way, is the third crisis 
when the memories of imperial Rome strongly 
affected the course of French history. Possessed 
of this weapon, the most formidable ever 
wielded by the hand of man. Napoleon trampled 
with horrible violence upon all that opposed his 
dreams, regardless of the harvests of hatred 
which he was thus preparing. He was allowed, 

29 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

as you know, to walk for ten years in his waking 
dream; to enter as master Vienna and Berlin, 
Madrid and Moscow. The French empire reached 
from the North Sea to the regions beyond 
the Adriatic ; it was surrounded by vassal prin- 
cipalities ruled over by members of the imperial 
family. We are filled with amazement that such 
a paradox, the bare idea of which would have 
seemed so supremely absurd to Voltaire and his 
contemporaries, should thus have been realized. 
Later, the day dawned for the inevitable 
breaking-up, and France suffered once more 
for having leaders careless of her interests and 
of their own duties. With his old-fashioned 
ambitions all directed toward the Mediterranean 
countries of Europe and Asia as a center. Na- 
poleon at the zenith of his career was as power- 
less as Louis XV. to discern the fast-increasing 
importance of the great territories of the New 
World ; he carelessly let slip from his grasp 
Louisiana and the Mississippi Valley — a third 
part and the very heart of the United States — 
just as formerly Louis XV. let go the valley of 
the St. Lawrence. Thus he finally destroyed the 
work of the French pioneers of North America. 
To offset this, he thought he had conquered 
Europe. But he had not taken into considera- 

30 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

tion the facts that the strength of France was 
not unlimited, and that the sympathy awakened 
for revolutionary France would at last turn 
against Napoleonic France, whose brutal domi- 
nation was justified by no ideal. He took no 
account of the energies developed among the 
most inoffensive peoples by the harsh manner 
in which he treated them. In his most prosper- 
ous years he never succeeded in overcoming 
English tenacity; defeated in Spain and Rus- 
sia, Germany, after her prostration at his hands, 
rose and overwhelmed him. After Waterloo he 
coolly washed his hands and departed, leaving 
France more contracted than she had been on 
the eve of the Revolution, bled to exhaustion, 
her revolutionary aureole gone, surrounded on 
all sides by new or rejuvenated states whose 
desire for vengeance was far from being satis- 
fied by his downfall. 

The history of France in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, which at first sight seems rather confused, 
unfolds quite logically when, to consider it, we 
place ourselves at the right point of view. We 
may explain it thus : France, when hardly re- 
covered from the Napoleonic disasters, tried 
again to carry through the revolution, the first 

31 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

attempt at which had turned out so badly. The 
history of France in the nineteenth century is 
the history of a great effort to restore and re- 
apply the principles of the French Revolution. 
There were counter-strokes and reactions, which 
give an impression of incoherence ; but if we 
look closer, we see that the effort has always 
been made in the same direction — anti- 
monarchical, democratic, and secular. 

The first attempt was in 1830. But this was 
too soon ; the revolution of 1830 was quickly 
side-tracked by the liberal bourgeoisie for their 
own advantage. At this time, nevertheless, 
France won back the sympathies of some of the 
oppressed nations and democratic parties whose 
good- will, proffered in 1790, had been lost to 
the nation through Napoleon. 

The second attempt was in 1848. But the 
time even yet had not come. The revolution of 
1848 traversed in a few months the arc which 
the revolution of 1789 had taken fifteen years 
to describe. Hardly cured by bitter experience 
of her liking for " the emperor " who had del- 
uged her with "glory," France accepted, in 
memory of Napoleon, a restoration of the em- 
pire. This new Napoleon said : " The empire 
means peace," but he made war. There were 

32 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

popular wars, quite in the spirit of revolutionary 
traditions, as, for example, that which brought 
about the creation of a kingdom of Italy ; but he 
conducted the war in such a way that the new 
Italian state could believe itself, and of course 
did believe itself, under no obligation of grati- 
tude. There were absurd wars like that with 
Mexico. At last the incapacity of the govern- 
ment and its incredible presumption brought 
upon the country the unparalleled disasters of 
1870, involving the profoundest military hu- 
miliation, Germany unified by victory, and the 
amputation of two provinces. 

The third attempt was in 1870, under the 
shock of these calamities. But even the France 
of 1870 was hardly prepared for a regime 
founded on liberty; so that this third attempt 
also came near failing in the face of renewed 
attacks on the part of the royalists (1873). 
This danger, however, was averted, and little 
by little the republic settled solidly upon a defin- 
itive foundation. "As there was never any 
revolution in France except to establish a re- 
public, there have been no revolutions since the 
republic has been in existence." The thirty 
years that have just gone by are the most peace- 
ful of our history ; the country was never more 
quiet or prosperous than it is today. 

33 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

But while all these events were happening 
the face of the earth was changing. Considered 
apart, France of today is incomparably stronger 
from every point of view than the France of 
1789; but, relatively, the opposite is true, be- 
cause everything around her has grown — the 
proportions are no longer the same. 

Under Louis XIV. the population of France 
represented forty per cent, of the total popula- 
tion of the great powers of Europe; in 1789, 
twenty-seven per cent. ; in 1900, hardly ten per 
cent. In 1789 France was the most populous 
state; at the present time, from this point of 
view, she falls behind Russia, Germany, Great 
Britain, and Austria-Hungary. In 1789 she was 
the most homogeneous of European states, in 
fact, almost the only one unified ; now almost all 
the European states are as well organized as 
she. The very effect of the Revolution was to 
create numerous national centers and to reduce 
France to the rank of one people among Euro- 
pean peoples. Moreover, Europe as a whole has 
developed rivals. The field of transformation 
has been so wide that today the largest, the 
richest, and the most influential of civilized 
states is in North America. Still other powers 
are making their appearance beyond the United 

34 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

States, in the Pacific islands. The axis of the 
world is being shifted. In these days an his- 
torical advance of several centuries may be 
caught up in thirty years, as Japan has shown. 
And who would venture to lay claim, in the 
world such as it now is and promises to be, to 
a permanent leadership? There is no longer 
any military primacy possible among so many 
nations of equivalent strength. 

No one nation can be first among all nations. 
The marvelous changes brought about in the 
nineteenth century in the distribution of social 
groups have made this primacy impossible, not 
only from the military point of view, but from 
every point of view. Who, or what people, 
would venture to lay claim in the present world 
to any sort of hegemony — intellectual, artistic, 
or scientific? There was a time when one need 
only know what was written in French ; literary 
men of all countries are today informed about 
the masterpieces of all nations, even those of 
Russia and Scandinavia, and no one is satisfied 
with his own national literature alone. As for 
science, we realize nowadays that its pursuit is 
the collective work of humanity as a whole ; all 
peoples are in collaboration, and in the common 
product it is hard to isolate and weigh the exact 

35 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

contribution made by each. No one can say, in 
the majority of scientific fields, to whom science 
owes the most — whether to the learned men of 
German, of English, or of French speech. 

Frenchmen who have studied the history of 
their country, and who are acquainted with 
other countries, therefore put aside the dream — 
once fully realized but henceforward antiquated 
— of an exclusive and preponderant influence 
emanating from France in military, artistic, or 
scientific fields. They have good reasons for 
not indulging in this dream ; but none the less 
they ask themselves what is destined to be, in 
the collective life of humanity, the role assigned 
to France, in the light of her past, by historical 
probability. Each of the great modern nations 
has its individual features which the centuries 
have developed and which must be respected. 
What, then, constitutes the individuality of 
France among modern nations? Here is pre- 
cisely the question in which I intended the pres- 
ent address to culminate. 

Recently, various solutions have been pro- 
posed in France, some of them diametrically 
opposed to others. 

The author of a book entitled La Patrie fran- 
gaise, ses origines, sa grandeur et ses vicissitudes 

36 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

— an author little known, but one who per- 
sonifies and represents a school — writes : " The 
flag of France is distinguished from all others 
by the fact that it is always accompanied or pre- 
ceded by the Cross. This cross is undeniably 
the symbol of the mission fulfilled on the earth 
by our country, and one which other nations 
v/ould like to snatch from her." This author 
believes that the essential and traditional role of 
France is that of eldest daughter and pillar of 
the church, the Catholic church : Gesta Dei per 
Francos. 

Michelet, the head of another school, declares, 
on the other hand, that what is peculiar to 
France is that she has always sacrificed herself 
for " causes " of universal interest, for the 
liberty and welfare of mankind ; she is " the 
most humane of nations, who alone, as history 
shows, possesses the genius of sacrifice." Has 
she not given her blood to free the United 
States, Greece, Belgium, Poland, Italy ? " In 
this country alone strength and ideality are at 
one, valor and right — two things disjoined 
the world over," etc. To Michelet and to his 
generation the national traditions of France 
are the ideals of justice, liberty, equality, and 
solidarity ; her " mission " is to propagate 

37 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

these principles among men ; she is for all time 
" the champion of reason and fraternal equality, 
the soldier of right." "France," said Ernest 
Renan, " — that nation which performs dis- 
interested acts for the benefit of the rest of the 
world." And another declares, in the same 
mood : " If France ever thought of giving up 
her disinterested, social, and humane spirit, she 
would lose without possible compensation what 
has always been the source of her moral 
power ; " and : " The great reason for the 
powerful influence exerted by France on other 
nations has been that she has never ceased to 
concern herself with the destinies of mankind." 

It is impossible to accept, in its entiret}^, either 
of these two theses. 

The first belongs to an unimportant minority. 
It has been a long time since France appeared in 
the role of the champion of Catholicism. Pepin 
the Short, Godfrey of Bouillon, St. Louis, and 
even Napoleon III. as defender of pontifical 
Rome against Garibaldi, are far in the past. 
The real eldest daughter of the church, as all 
know, is Spain. It would even seem that 
France, historically speaking, is the nation 
which among the Catholic nations has played 
this part the least. But it is quite useless at this 
time to insist further on this point. 

38 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 



The second thesis is very characteristic of the 
mid-nineteenth century. It is not entirely and 
radically false, for it cannot be doubted that the 
rationalistic and sentimental program of the 
Revolution was the crystallization of opinions 
which had been very popular for centuries. From 
this point of view it is true that the French tra- 
dition falls in very well with the humanitarian 
program of the Revolution. And it is true that 
the Revolution formulated definitely an ideal of 
liberty, equality, fraternity, and justice, and im- 
posed it with a new vigor upon succeeding 
generations in France, even to the point of lead- 
ing Frenchmen into chivalric interventions — 
often ill-managed and sometimes resented — in 
the affairs of others. But the error of Michelet 
and his following lay in believing in a quasi- 
providential and indefeasible "mission," as if 
humanity were destined to remain always, so to 
speak, under the influence and ascendency of 
that nation which was the first to open new 
highways into the future. We can easily see 
how they were led here into an exaggeration: 
they insisted, in an indirect way, on reserving 
for France a sort of primacy; a military or 
intellectual supremacy being excluded, they sub- 
stituted a primacy of dominating and guiding 

39 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

forces in the direction of progress, enlighten- 
ment, and emancipation. We are better in- 
formed nowadays ; we have learned that in the 
future such a primacy will be divided up like 
the others. All peoples have henceforward a 
universal role. As one of our orators has said : 
" they are like vessels, which, fitted with elec- 
tric searchlights, and with prows directed 
toward the horizon of a better civilization, are 
sweeping the horizon with their lights. Who 
knows from which vessel, or from what people, 
will come the brightest signal, the most piercing 
ray?" 

As a reaction against the usual insistence by 
the Catholic idealists and the revolutionary 
idealists upon identifying the destiny of France 
with "the genius for sacrifice" — sacrifice of 
the national interests to those of the church or 
to those of humanity — and under the stress of 
mistakes committed in the name of these theo- 
ries, a new school has grown up since the formal 
establishment of the republic, which advocates 
the contrary policy of national egoism, a policy 
favoring business and colonial activity. "We 
have done enough for others, it is time to take 
thought for ourselves." Surely nothing could 
be more natural than this defensive movement, 
' 40 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

and, if it had always been guided by enlightened 
men, nothing perhaps could be wiser. But at 
the same time it is plain that nothing is more 
foreign to the careless and generous spirit of the 
nation. France hears the bourgeois virtues 
preached to her; but she has always acted the 
part of the grand seigneur. 

Where, then, is that originality, the inheri- 
tance of a long past, which France is bound to 
respect and cultivate for her own good and that 
of others? Let us see. The French people 
(I mean now the majority of cultivated people 
in France) has always been very secular and 
very free in its thought ; in France people began 
\ery soon to speak on any and all subjects with- 
out reserve and without prohibition ; and this 
complete liberty, which contributes not a little 
to the life and ease of our literature, is yet, for 
many foreigners, the object of remark and of 
envy. The French mind and the French lan- 
guage, moreover, are generally credited with 
certain eminent qualities: precision, clearness, 
logic. Quite as much as her ancient ascen- 
dancy these qualities have won for France for 
centuries past her traditional role of mediator 
between the nations. If there has been in the 
modern world any parallel to the ancient univer- 

41 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

sality of Greek culture, it has been the diffusion 
of French culture among the intelligent classes 
of all countries. Thus it is that our French 
writers have been " the secretaries of the human 
mind " — in other words, they have excelled in 
the labor of sifting out what is precious or 
exquisite in foreign civilizations, with a view to 
enjoying it themselves and enabling the whole 
world to enjoy it. These are remarks which 
might easily be expanded ; the subject is one 
worthy of reflection. Mankind surely has need 
of a mediator between its different groups, a 
nation where the new faith, which shall be at 
once rational and social, and which has not yet 
been put forward to replace the old decrepit 
beliefs, shall be worked out in an atmosphere of 
absolute intellectual liberty. It is true that I 
was reading lately a book of a German professor 
in which he predicts that this mediating nation 
will be Germany { and a book of an Italian pro- 
fessor who claims it will be Italy, the venerable 
mater gentium. And, by the way, why should 
not this nation be the United States, where all 
the races of the old continent have met and been 
fused ? There is no doubt that each of the great 
peoples of the w^orld has good reasons to destine 
this fine role to its own country. But if these 
I 42 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

are illusions, they are beneficent illusions ; let us 
keep them. It is a sign of the times that we 
shall now witness a competition for this pacific 
office of mediator. The future will decide. We 
shall see. 

In any case, the people, whichever it may be, 
that shall perform the duties just mentioned 
must needs be a healthy, vigorous, and growing 
people. France then would be constrained to 
renounce her candidacy if it were true that she 
had fallen into a decline, as has recently been 
rumored. Depopulation, alcoholism, parasitism 
in government circles, and what not? Volumes 
have been written in France to discuss this ques- 
tion. A whole literature full of an enervating 
pessimism has appeared to uphold the affirma- 
tive. A newspaper sent a circular to persons of 
note to inquire as to their opinion. Some an- 
swered "Yes;" others, "No;" others, "Per- 
haps." An Englishman answered : " Surely 
France is decadent, since Frenchmen are found 
who ask such a question." Heaven knows it is 
not impossible that even a great and noble 
nation should fall one day into decadence: Nil 
permanet sub sole. Men have seen it happen. 
History records that strange decline of vitality 
that came upon Spain in the late sixteenth cen- 

43 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

tury and from which she has not recovered. 
But no one who knows France of today can con- 
vince himself that she is seriously ill. She has 
had attacks, at different times during the last 
twenty years, of malignant diseases which she 
has victoriously cast off — an evidence of a good 
constitution. On the material side, she has 
maintained her rank. One cannot know exactly, 
of course, what a modern military organization 
is worth until it is tested by a shock, and it is 
certainly true that "where a battalion is con- 
stituted in France, a regiment springs up in 
Germany, and an army corps in Russia;" but 
there are reasons for hoping that the French 
organization is what it ought to be, and numbers 
are not everything. We have seen and may see 
today certain well-organized states, active and 
firm on their feet even if diminutive in stature, 
who are commanding the respect of states of 
colossal size. Morally speaking, do you not be- 
lieve that the world would lose something if 
tomorrow French authors should cease writing 
and French artists no longer express their con- 
ceptions of beauty? 

It seems plain that what has made a few 
Frenchmen afraid of a possible decadence — a 
fear which is at present groundless — is simply 



THE HISTORIC ROLE OF FRANCE 

the discomfort due to an uneasy and imperfect 
realization of the situation which I have en- 
deavored to describe clearly in your presence to- 
day : the all-important fact that France, who in 
former days exerted a preponderant influence 
because of her historical position in advance of 
other nations, is today only one among many, 
una inter pares. " For thirty years now," ex- 
claimed recently M. Jules Lemaitre, the well- 
known nationalist, "there has been no special 
pleasure in being a Frenchman ! " It is quite 
natural that Frenchmen of the end of the nine- 
teenth century should have had some difficulty 
in accustoming themselves to these new condi- 
tions which the general evolution of human 
societies has imposed rather rudely on their 
country. Hence this uneasiness, which is be- 
trayed in some by exhibitions of excessive 
humility ; in others, by outbursts of pride. But 
our eyes are now opened : we are proud — and 
why should we not be? — of a very glorious 
past; we rejoice in the attention which this 
past secures for us from nations whose future 
seems brighter than ours ; and we are confident, 
lastly, that France will remain, by virtue of the 
sincerity of her efforts, one of the forces, one of 
the lights, and one of the graces of humankind. 

45 



